Sacha Baron Cohen has made news again, for taking his Bruno character to Milan’s fashion week and storming the stage at the Agatha Ruiz de la Prada fashion show. The footage will undoubtedly make it into his next film.
Being the comedy diva that I am, my friends and colleagues were shocked that I didn’t run out to see his last film, Borat, when it was first released. I made excuses, but the truth was simply that I can’t handle victim comedy.
Today was a first for me: I was invited to document the first-ever official ImprovEverywhere mission in Toronto, ON.
I’ve been an ImprovEverywhere fan for years, but until today I had only been able to catch the shenanigans online, after the the fact. ImprovEverywhere was started by Charlie Todd, a New York-based improvisor with the UCB Theatre (where I took a few levels of training myself). Their goal is to cause “scenes of chaos and joy in public places” — in other words, do crazy shit that doesn’t piss anyone off.
Welcome.
Last Sunday night, the hosts of the 60th Annual Emmy Awards bombed.
There’s no shame in bombing, in and of itself. If you don’t bomb, you aren’t taking risks. You aren’t doing anything unique. You aren’t pushing boundaries.
A bomb is only truly painful to watch when it comes from lack of preparation, lack of talent, and a lack of self-awareness. That’s what we had on our hands while watching this year’s Emmys, as five reality-show hosts awkwardly maneuvered their ways through the thinnest of comedic material.
Those of us at home were able to hit “mute” or turn our focus elsewhere while the forced banter was playing out. The folks stuck in their seats at the Nokia Theater, though, were subjected to every terrible moment.
A friend of mine was fortunate to be a winner that night. I was thrilled to see him go up and accept his hardware, and almost just as thrilled to know he was headed backstage to the press room to be rewarded with a brief respite from the atrocity continuing in the theater. From his perspective, the show was horrible. “Imagine how the folks who didn’t win must feel,” he said after.
Well, we know how one of those folks feels. Nominee Denis Leary called the proceedings “offensive”. It’s a remarkably accurate word.
In an interview on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, he said:
“I was offended as a comedian. … I’m so sick and tired of people saying, ‘You just write funny lines and put anybody up there.’ No, to be funny is actually a job and it takes required training.”
Those of us who spend large parts of our lives around comedy take this fact for granted. Of course it’s hard. Of course it takes work. Of course not just anyone can do it.
But the public needs to be told this. It looks like the industry needed a reminder too. And they got it.
As a lifelong supporter of comedy, it’s been my personal mandate to present comedy as a serious artform. As a journalist I covered comedy for print (remember print??), and for three years hosted my own radio show about comedy. After this, I turned to performing on a semi-regular basis, and confirmed what I already knew: this shit is hard.
Comedians themselves are typically reluctant to wax poetic on the merits of what they do, and often dismiss their profession as being a convenient alternative to a “real” job. The truth is, punching up a script is tougher work than punching a timeclock. And comedy serves an invaluable function in society, which is too often taken for granted.
Whether covering standup, writing, film, clown, improv… this blog will, first and foremost, treat comedy as something to be respected.
from the Back of the Room 